Integrating Simplified and Full Life Cycle Approaches in Decision Making for Building Energy Refurbishment: Benefits and Barriers

Buildings

Xabat Oregi¹  Patxi Hernandez¹  Cristina Gazulla²  Marina Isasa² 

[1] Energy and Environment Division, Tecnalia Research and Innovation, Tecnalia, Azpeitia 20730, Spain; E-Mail:;UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI—Pompeu Fabra University), Barcelona 08003, Spain; E-Mails:

关键词: refurbishment;    life cycle assessment (LCA);    simplified life cycle assessment;    building refurbishment;    embodied energy;    life cycle energy performance;    sensitivity analysis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/buildings5020354

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The life cycle assessment (LCA) method is a powerful tool that can serve to aid decision making regarding the environmental benefits of refurbishment projects. However, due to the relative complexity of LCA studies, simplified LCA methodologies are frequently used, focusing on just some of the building life cycle phases or a reduced number of indicators. The most common and widespread simplification is to only evaluate the differences a refurbishment project makes on the operational energy use of the building. This paper compares the results of applying full LCA, simplified LCA and operational energy use assessment in a refurbishment case study. Results show that simplified LCA methodologies including building use phase and product manufacturing phase can generally be sufficiently accurate to aid decision making for building energy refurbishment, as other building life cycle phases related to transport of products, on site construction, deconstruction or end of life represent a generally negligible part of the total life cycle impacts, both in terms of resource use or environmental impacts. Barriers and benefits of applying simplified LCA approaches to building energy refurbishment projects are subsequently discussed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.